


Broken Dolls

by Hinn_Raven



Series: Dollhouse AU [2]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dollhouse Fusion, Angst, F/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Apocalypse, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2019-08-18 17:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: After the end, Dick and Barbara discuss guilt and the path forward.





	Broken Dolls

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: DickBabs Dollhouse AU.

Dick wanders through the Dollhouse, feeling so lost.  _My fault._

He wants to break down, wants to cry, wants to scream. He wants to smash the remainders of the beautiful building that he had managed for years. He wants to destroy the pods, sticking his feet through the glass, destroying the “peace” and “serenity” that he had helped create.

Of course, the Dollhouse was nothing peaceful any more. The refugees cluttered it, dirty and smelly and broken but so much more alive than any of the actives could ever hope to be. Except Echo. But Echo is hardly normal.

“Dick!” Artemis calls. Dick turns to her, smiling wanly as he greets his old friend.

The years have battered Artemis. There are scars on her hands. A metal ring surrounds her eye. Implants. She wears clothes scavenged from the Active closets, and looks beautiful and clean. Her  _son_  clings to her hand, wide-eyed and curious as he looks at Dick. He has her hair but Wally’s eyes, his skin falling somewhere between. He’s wearing a sweat-shirt Dick is almost certain once belonged to Billy Batson, and Dick ignores the automatic spike of guilt that accompanies that name in his mind. Artemis’s face is worried, her mouth drawn into a thin line. Her steely eyes look at him. He feels like they’re knives, cutting away his layers and baring his soul for the world to see. “Babs wants to see you,” she says. Her voice is soft, concern peppering her tone. Babs still hasn’t recovered from what Luthor did to her. Dick wonders, deep down, if she ever will.

“Thanks,” he says. She smiles at him, the barest hint of a raised lip and teeth, but he takes what he gets. True smiles are rare in this world that Cadmus and Luthor have created, using the tools Barbara made and Dick foolishly gave. (Luthor’s promises, so empty seeming now, echo vaguely in his mind.)

Dick wishes, more than anything, that people would stop being so  _understanding_  about the whole thing.

He goes to Babs. She’s in her chair, by the pods. Her eyes are glazed over, not seeing him as he approaches. She’s clean now, all traces of blood and dirt wiped away by the Dollhouse’s (miraculously still working) showers, but her hair is still a mess. It’s curly and tangled and falling into her face. Dick reaches out and starts to run his fingers through her hair, gently undoing the knots. “You asked for me?” He asks quietly.

Babs might be broken, but her mind is still  _functioning_ , impossibly, miraculously. If anyone actually can undo the damage, destroy this hell on earth, it would be her.

Her skin is soft to touch as he rubs the back of her hand. “Babs,” he whispers. “Babs, it’s me.”

She jerks, as if slapped. “Dick!” She says, her eyes focusing, even for just a minute. He beams at her.

“How’s my genius?” He asks, trying to pretend that things are the way they were. That he was the head of the Dollhouse and she was his genius techie, creating the impossible and amoral together. He missed those days, when the guilt was fleeting and he had a purpose. Anything was better than this dystopic world that he had helped create in return for fleeting freedom for his brother and even fleeter power for himself, in desperate hope that he could protect the people he loved. He’s not sure if Babs ever really forgave him for that. He’s not sure if he deserves to be forgiven, despite the fact that Echo and Artemis and Wally and so many others actually have.

She smiles at him, but her eyes are already clouding over. “I can do it,” she whispers, the mildly manic look in her eyes familiar. Back then, it meant she’d made a leap, a new understanding. Now… Dick didn’t know what to think.

“You can stop it?” His heart is in his throat. Everything could be fixed.

She smiles, really smiles, and he feels his heart break with the sheer weight of his joy as she starts to techno-babble at him. Her hands move as she talks, her hair falls into her face as she tries to move it out of the way, and she seems so  _alive_.

Until he runs it through his mental filter, and he realizes what it means.

“What do you mean, it can’t be remotely activated?” He asks, horror seeping into his veins. He feels cold, like the air in the Dollhouse has somehow deviated from perfect temperature, even though Alpha has assured him that all systems were fully functional.

“Trigger won’t work,” Babs says, looking down. “Need to set it.”

“Let me,” he says, and oh god he’s  _crying_ , tears pouring down his cheeks in itchy hot streams. He grabs her hands in his and he’s  _begging_. “Babs, let me. I’ll do it.  _Please_.”

She pats his cheek almost absently, her thumb brushing away the wetness. “You have pretty eyes,” she whispers. “I always thought that.”

“ _Babs_.”

She smiles at him, and her eyes are watery too. “They need you more,” she whispers.

Dick jerks back, understanding hitting him like a ton of bricks. He looks at her again. He sees the guilt that ravages her beautiful face. Dick has tried to remove the blame from himself by running the safe place, by organizing and working and helping. Babs… she had none of that. This, saving the world that she had created the tools to destroy, was her penance.

“Babs, no one blames you,” he says, cupping her head in his hand. Tears spill out of her eyes, and Dick thinks for a moment how glad she probably is that she no longer wears makeup to leave tracks on her face.

“I blame me,” she says. “My arrogance. My pride. My sin.”

“My sin, not yours,” he whispers, pressing his fingers against her mouth. She twists her mouth into a smile, and grabs his fingers away.

“We share,” she offers, vague amusement in her voice even as they both cry.

“Sure,” he whispers. “We’ll… share.”

“They’ll need you,” she says. Dick finds his knees going weak. He falls to the floor, crying. His head rests in her laps, his tears staining the denim of her skirt. Her fingers run through his hair, petting him. “Shhhhhh,” she coos, and wasn’t he supposed to be comforting her? “You understand, better than anyone. People will need you. Calm. Reliable.”

Dick only cries harder at that. He can imagine helping the world heal. He can picture the world that Babs is promising. The Doll’s down here, so they won’t be wiped. The rest of the world, restored to their originals. Luthor and Graves and Ghul and Orn and the rest of the goddamn Corp gone for good, banished into digital and digital alone. He, helping the world heal.

But he can’t imagine it without  _her_.

“I need you,” he manages, feeling awful and useless. “Babs,  _please_.”

She tilts his face up towards hers, smiling in that odd broken way of hers that makes him want to  _strangle_  every member of Cadmus. She traces the lines of his face with her finger tips. “You’re so pretty,” she tells him. “I miss you in suits.”

He laughs, a strange, choking, broken noise that seems to rip him apart from the inside out. “ _Babs_.”

She kisses him then, her lips pressed against his. Her lips are chapped and her fingers are pulling a little too much on his shirt, but it’s still heaven. He cradles her neck in his hands and deepens the kiss, his lips gliding against hers blissfully. She tastes of salty tears and blood and gunpowder residue and Wally’s spicy sausage soup, a combination that is so completely bizarre that it doesn’t even bare thinking about, not when her tongue is running along his teeth, inspecting every inch of his mouth with her usual scientific dedication.

He moans into her mouth as her presence chases away the cold he felt earlier, her hands careful brushing aside his tears.

“I love you,” he whispers as they eventually part. The little cut on her lip from earlier has come open (which certainly explains the taste of blood), but she looks happier (and more put together) than he’s seen her since everything began to go to hell.

“Love you,” she whispers, almost sing-song. “Know what I know.”

He flinches at those words.

“Sorry,” she mutters. “Forget sometimes. That you kept me less-broken.”

“That’s my job,” he says, squeezing her hand.

She laughs gently, sounding less broken. “No it’s not.” She pats his head again. “Need to tell Echo,” she says vaguely. “He needs to know.”

Dick didn’t want to tell Echo. He just wanted to stay here forever, here in Babs’ arms, with her lips and her smiles and her laughs and  _her_.

But he kisses her cheek gently and goes to do as she asks.

“Be back soon,” he says softly, wondering how long it will be true for.

She tilts her head to the side, her hair falling into her face. “Huh,” she whispers to herself. 


End file.
